What Is a Product Launch? A Definitive Guide

Updated June 24, 2022

The launch of a new product is as crucial as its development. When you launch a product effectively, your target market becomes aware of it, enabling you to meet profitability and revenue goals. Planning a product launch early enough helps you prepare and ensures you address every detail for when the product is ready for sale. In this article, we explain what a product launch is and the best practices for a successful one.

What is a product launch?

A product launch is when a business creates a plan and coordinates its efforts to introduce a new solution, or product, into the market and makes it available for purchase. When done correctly, it serves the following purposes:

Gives the customers a chance to buy your product
Brings the product into the focus of its markets
Helps the organization build product anticipation
Gathers the correct feedback from its users
Gains industry recognition and momentum for the company
Ensures you use time, money and resources appropriately

As an organization, you may conduct product launches in different ways. A soft launch means your product quietly enters the market with little fanfare. The minimal launch gets your product into the market with a minimum amount spent on marketing to encourage interest. In contrast, full-scale marketing launches your product in the most significant way possible, costing more time, money and effort.

Best practices for product launch

Product launch is essential to any organization, so it's helpful to have a strategy in place before your planned launch date. For a successful product launch, here are some best practices you might adopt:

Plan the prelaunch

Prelaunch often occurs shortly before the date of the product launch. This period requires you to know the product, get close to your product development team, join the team in doing product tests and ask questions, especially if you're unfamiliar with the product. This is when you become comfortable with the product and focus on the vision, aligning your messaging techniques with the product and bridging the gap between the consumer's pain points and what the competition lacks.

Involve the entire team

The success of a product launch depends on the collaborative efforts of every department in your organization. Some teams, such as product development and management, handle most of the work for the product launch, but other groups, such as customer support, marketing, sales and finance, are also important, so it's helpful to define their duties. The more people you involve in your product launch, the more chances of your product reaching its intended targets.

Launch when you're ready

Today's marketplace is competitive, requiring you to allocate a lot of time and effort to product launches. It's important to launch your product when you and your team are ready. Having confidence that customers want your product means launching it and then making upgrades or improvements once you get customer feedback.

Focus on more than the product

Your products aim to reach your consumers, fill a gap and ultimately satisfy them. Learn more about your entire process by reviewing your sales ads, purchasing the product and contacting your company's support team. If the entire process is sufficient and leaves you with a pleasant experience, your customers likely feel the same. When planning your launch and post-launch, your customer's best experience is your key priority as it leads to success.

Have the end in mind

Venturing into a product launch with prior strategic thinking and long-term decision-making is among the best investments for businesses. A clear vision upfront can help you set your product goals, solve the target's unique problems and help build a product roadmap. The roadmap requires approval by stakeholders before you launch with small, specific tasks and you can put these task items into your product backlog.

Create helpful metrics

Your product launch doesn't start or end on the launch date, it begins well before and continues afterward. Determine whether your launch succeeded at the planning stages and postproduct launch stages. Get your team to develop a matrix to understand your successes and shortcomings to help you with future projects.

Monitor your users

During the post-product launch, your users may provide data that tells if your product is marketable. Tracking user behavior and gathering their feedback is critical. When you get feedback, consider reacting to it immediately. If it's an upgrade your customers require, it's helpful to do what you can to meet their needs.

Assist the sales team

The sales team is an integral part of the success of a product launch. They're the customer-facing team, making deals on behalf of the company and enhancing the brand's image. Train the sales team on the product and how to use it and try to involve them in the product launch planning for their input on potential customer reactions.

Research the target market

Researching your target market can take as little as 15-20 minutes, and talking to a dozen or more prospective consumers. Focus your conversation to discover your customer's motivations, goals, pain points or what drives them to customize your product for themselves. Once you have the answers, develop a buyer persona that serves as a reference point to your entire team during product development.

Use focused messaging

You can focus your message about your new product's narrative on its most valuable aspect. During the launch, ignore the urge to communicate multiple features because it may not answer everyone's questions. Since you only have a few moments at a launch, try persuading your potential customers using a unique and straightforward approach to talk about what your product does and its high-level value.

Set your product goals

Before you implement a strategy to get a product into the market, set some goals on what you want to achieve with your product launch. Writing down the desired goal can help keep you on the appropriate path. It can also help you focus your resources and efforts on the launch techniques that help achieve set goals.

Advertise for promotion

Blog posts, landing pages and even demonstrations and tutorials are excellent, cost-effective and productive methods of bringing your product in front of consumers in today's digital world. Write catchy, helpful and informative content when producing promotional content about your product. There are numerous research market templates to help you create content for the different journeys of an internet customer.

Plan your marketing strategy

A marketing strategy promotes your products and determines whether the launch succeeds. There are two primary strategies employed by organizations—flywheel and funnel strategy. The funnel strategy focuses on the number of customers you can output and has your team working for just one sell. The flywheel has customers promoting your products to their connections, meaning they're the input in this method.

Create a launch plan

It's ideal to begin your product launch plan four to six months before the launch date to execute an event that meets your goals effectively. This plan can help you structure tasks before, during and after the launch date. An excellent product launch plan ensures all team members, partners and consumers understand your new product.

Overwork on outreach

Frequently and constantly going overboard with the outreach methodologies may give your product the required attention. Use the social media accounts you have consistently. Potential customers are usually on these platforms, so find them and bring your product into their knowledge. The more people find you, the more successful your product launch may become.

Write captivating emails

The number of emails the average person may get in a day is countless, so it's helpful if yours is original and captivating. You might strive to create anticipation with lines such as "Have you heard the buzz?" You can use contrasting or vibrant colors for the forefront and background and add customer reviews. Your emails can serve as another way to get customers interested in your product launch and help you determine the proper recipients for your company's newsletters.

Use a launch template

Using a template can make it easier to get things done, especially when you're inexperienced. A product launch template helps you track your progress at every launch stage, prioritize the critical tasks on the roadmap and monitor your posts, social media outreach and your company's newsletter progress. You can often customize the templates for your needs.

What Is a Product Launch? A Definitive Guide